


Piece of Cake (Edward Elric x Male Reader)

by DreamDepot



Series: Dream Seeds (One-Shots) [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 18:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16497512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamDepot/pseuds/DreamDepot
Summary: Sometimes taking a break is the best way to solve a problem.





	Piece of Cake (Edward Elric x Male Reader)

“C’mon [Y/n], do you have to?” your boyfriend whined from the table.

You shook your head with a little grin. “If Granny Pinako is inviting me over for dinner with you and Al tonight, I should bring some food too. It’s only proper as a guest, right?” You tied your favorite bandana across your forehead and tossed on your trusty apron. “Now… do you think Granny would like strawberries or chocolate?”

Ed trudged to the kitchen and smacked his hands on the table next to your ingredients. In a whirl of alchemic energy and light, they combined into a cake, albeit not an appealing one. “There, done. Can we go now?”

“Well,” you began, “aside from the fact you combined the glass milk bottle and the eggshells into the cake, it’s not the most… well, it’s not very pleasing to the eye?”

“Who cares if it looks pretty?”

“Ed, I have a reputation to uphold!” As the owner of the best bakery in Resembool and the surrounding area, you prided yourself on excellence. This... monstrosity hardly resembled anything edible, let alone a cake.

“Can’t we just go do something else?”

You crossed your arms. “Jeez, Ed, what crawled up your ass today?”

“It’s this damn formula. I can’t crack it. I know I’m missing some ingredient but nothing I’ve tried works!” You were no alchemist, but you understood his anger. Ed was a child prodigy who could decipher any text and crack any formula. You knew he’d get it eventually. “If I don’t figure it out before Al and I head back to Central, I’ll never hear the end of it from Mustang!”

You defused your (little) hothead with a quick peck on the lips. “Then, you need a distraction. Why don’t you help me with making the cake?”

“But baking is boring…”

“It’s not that different from alchemy. After all, combining ingredients to get a new whole while not losing or gaining matter? Pretty close to me.”

Ed grumbled incoherently, so you tossed an arm on his shoulder and led him to the sink to wash up.

* * *

With a fresh batch of ingredients, the two of you set to work. “Ed, you can’t just smash the egg into the bowl. We’ll never get the shells out.”

“You make it look so easy.”

“It’s only out of practice, like anything else. How do I put this in your language… how about a strong force applied perpendicularly over a small area rather than distributed over the surface of the shell? If the force is evenly applied, the whole egg shatters instead of making a clean split.”

“Huh,” he muttered, “makes sense… kinda.” He cracked the egg again. “Though I think you’re making stuff up to sound smart.”

“Not all of us can be geniuses, Ed.” You inspected the bowl and smiled. “That looks a lot better, only a bit of shell this time!”

“Alright smartass, how else is alchemy and cooking alike?”

“Well,” you said, “think of it this way: the ingredients need to be in proper amounts. If any one ingredient is too much or too little, the product is completely ruined. Speaking of, hand me the milk, please. I need half a liter.”

Ed screwed up his face. “Why milk?”

You took a deep breath. You loved your boyfriend, but he could be so childish. “It’s like the early experiments of the old Xerxian alchemists, you know, the tale of the old bridge. When the alchemists attempted to raise a bridge from stone alone, it failed because-”

“-they forgot to create a mortar to bind the stone and hold it,” Ed finished, nodding.

“Exactly! In baking, milk proteins do the binding, making it so the dough holds together when heated. Plus, it adds texture and moisture. No one wants a dry cake.”

He laughed. “And where’d you learn about those experiments?”

“Might’ve snuck a peek at a few of your books. Wanted to make sure I could at least understand the basics of alchemy.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because alchemy makes you happy,” you said as you creamed the butter. “I want to be able to talk about it with you. You always get so excited over it, you big nerd.” `

Ed stopped and stared. “You… you did it for me?”

“Of course,” you said, setting down your big wooden spoon. “Since you’re always traveling, we don’t get to spend a lot of time together. I get that I can’t help you out with finding the Philosopher’s Stone or developing new equations for Amestris, but I can at least be there to listen when you need to talk. I wanted to make sure that when you do get a chance to visit, it’s special. And that I can listen to you and understand what you’re saying.”

Your boyfriend, for once, was speechless. You smiled and took his bowl and mixed in the rest of the wet ingredients. “So,” you said to break the silence, “chocolate or strawberry?”

“Chocolate.”

“You sure that isn’t just what you want?”

“No, Pinako likes it. Listen – uh – is your stove working alright?”

“Yeah, Winry took a look at it last week. Why?”

“Thought… maybe I could make it a little easier on you if I made a couple changes. If we change the metal to a different alloy, it should heat more efficiently. The iron you have is pretty inefficient.”

“I’d like that.” What else could you say? He found strange ways to show his love, like the set of stainless bowls you used for today’s baking, or the special ceramic knife set that never dulled. You folded in the last of the dry ingredients along with a hefty scoop of cocoa powder when you realized there was something missing. “Ed, did you put in the salt?”

“Salt? Why would you want salt?” He asked, handing you a container.

You tossed in a pinch and finished the last few strokes. “You see, salt is important for baking, maybe even the most important ingredient. It brings all of the flavors to life and enhances them. The chocolate is richer, the sugar is sweeter…”

“Wait… salt! Sodium chloride! I’m such an idiot!!”

“Should I agree with you or…?”

“No, the answer to my formula is sodium chloride! I gotta write this down!” Like a (small) crimson whirlwind, Ed shot out of the kitchen. You smiled and poured the delicious batter into a greased pan when he ran back in.

“Thank you,” he said with a lingering kiss. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” And with that, he was off again. You laughed. Even in sleepy Resembool, life with the Fullmetal Alchemist was never dull.


End file.
